


Minefield

by helsinkibaby



Series: Right Beside Me Around Every Turn [4]
Category: The Flying Doctors
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Slice of Life, Surrogate Father-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 10:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12363798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: On a dark and stormy night, with Chris stranded on a clinic run, Zoe and Tom have a talk.





	Minefield

**Author's Note:**

> For gen prompt bingo, "it was a dark and stormy night"

Tom is sitting on the couch in Chris's house, working his way through a good book when the first rumble of thunder sounds far in the distance. Almost immediately, there's a patter of rain against the roof and windows and he frowns, knowing that the forecast storm has finally arrived. It had hit the clinic run earlier in the afternoon, reducing the airstrip to a mudfield and stranding Chris, Kate and Sam miles away until at least tomorrow morning. Of course, with a hope that belies his years of experience in these matters, as he listens to the rain beating down outside, Tom finds himself thinking that this might be just one of those outback storms that's fierce while it lasts but is over as quickly as it begins. 

A couple of minutes later, with a louder crack of thunder and a flash of lightning to boot, he's ready to admit it might not be. 

That's when he hears footsteps coming down the hall, looks up and puts his bookmark into the book as Zoe comes around the corner. She's pulling her robe around her tightly and her eyes are huge and dark and scared. Tom gives her his best reassuring smile - after all, with Chris away, he's in loco parentis until she gets back. "Hey, kiddo, I thought you were asleep." 

She tries to give him a smile. It doesn't work. "The storm woke me up. I hate thunder." At that moment another clap of thunder seems to rattle the windows and Zoe jumps, visibly trembling afterwards and Tom's reminded in a way that he often isn't that, for all she might often act like she's older than her fifteen years, she's still very much just a kid. A kid who, moreover, just lost the only parents she's ever known, has moved from a nomadic existence to small town Outback life. It's quite the adjustment and while Tom knows Chris has been great with her - he's seen it first hand - he also knows there's a lot more work still to do. 

But Chris isn't here at the moment, and he is, so he stands. "I could make you some warm milk?" he suggests, remembering what his own mother used to do on nights he couldn't sleep. Of course, when Zoe wrinkles her nose, he also remembers just how he enjoyed that, or more to the point, how much he didn't. "Good point. Milky tea then? I was just going to make a cup before I turn in." He'd been intending on doing no such thing but when Zoe manages to smile, he figures he made the right choice. "And if you play your cards right, I might even remember where Chris hides the biscuits..."

Her smile widens at that, becomes more genuine, and they head together into the kitchen where they make the tea together, him telling her where different things are, as if she needs to be told. But it fills the silence, gives her something to think about aside from the thunder outside and in no time, they are sitting at either side of the kitchen table, the promised packet of biscuits between them. 

"Tim-Tams at this time of night?" Zoe doesn't reach for one straight away, even though she's grinning. "Chris would not approve."

It's God's own truth, to be sure, and Tom doesn't bother to deny it. Instead he shrugs, opens the packet and takes a biscuit before sliding it across the table to her. "Chris isn't here," he points out. "Besides, you've had a bad fright, this is practically medicine - I can write you a prescription if you like..." 

He lets his voice trail off and she giggles as she snags not one but two biscuits from the packet. He says nothing, just sips his tea quietly and it's a surprise when she speaks first. "So, there's something I don't understand."

"Oh?" He tries to make it as non-commital as possible but he suddenly feels like he's about to walk into a minefield. "What's that?"

"How come you and Chris have two houses?" And just like that, he feels ripples from an explosion underneath his feet and he takes another sip of tea to give him time to figure out how the hell to respond to that. Of course, it also gives Zoe time to follow up one question with an observation that's equally damning. "I mean, you stay over most nights anyway..."

"I do not." The lie trips easily off Tom's tongue. "I go home after you've gone to bed..." 

A smirk plays around Zoe's lips. "At five in the morning," she points out and there's not much he can say to that, not when it's true. "I hear you sneaking out all the time," Zoe continues, before adding, "I haven't mentioned that to Chris." 

Knowing how seriously Chris is taking setting a good example to Zoe, Tom thinks that's probably for the best. He also figures that beating around the bush is going to get him exactly nowhere, so he goes with the truth. "This isn't the city, Zoe," he says. "There are a lot of people who are very conservative around here, who wouldn't approve of the two of us living in sin." 

Zoe literally rolls her eyes at the phrasing. "That's stupid," she decides. "It's practically the nineties..." 

"Not everywhere," he tells her, taking a second Tim-Tam from the packet. He considers taking a third too, this conversation definitely feels like it requires it. "We're doctors, we have an example to set..." Even if he hates it with every fibre of his being. He wants to go to sleep with the woman he loves in his arms, wake up the same way without sneaking out of her house in the dead of night like some teenager sneaking around, trying to get the better of his girlfriend's parents. 

Of course, Zoe's a clever kid, so she goes straight to the next most obvious question and Tom is under no illusions that it's also on the lips of every man and woman in Cooper's Crossing. Zoe, however, is the only one who's ever asked it to his face, for all he knows that they're asking it behind his back. "So why don't you get married?" 

To hell with it, Tom reaches for the third biscuit, tells himself that Zoe can't know the minefield she's just stumbled into. "We've talked about it," he says and it's not a lie. "We're just not there yet." 

Zoe eyes him thoughtfully with eyes that are suddenly far older than fifteen. "Do you think you will?" 

"Probably." As she did earlier, he tries to smile. From the look of doubt on her face, he thinks he has about as much success. "When it's the right time." 

Zoe makes a noise in the back of her throat that he recognises as the same one that Chris sometimes makes when he's said something that she finds objectionable but isn't actually going to call him out on it. "She loves you, you know," she says instead and that, he can respond to. 

"And I love her," he says. "But it's not that simple." 

Zoe tilts her head. "Maybe it should be." Draining the last of her tea, she stands and brings to mug to the sink. "I'll see you in the morning." 

He sits there until his tea turns cold and the packet of biscuits is empty, still turning her words over in his mind.


End file.
